Posted on 07/30/2003 6:00:44 AM PDT by MindBender26
Bill OReilly Calls For Federal Cyber Police
FOX News Channel show host, and occasional Conservative Bill OReilly called for a Federal Cyber Police on ABCs Good Morning America today.
In the 7:30 to 8:00 segment of the ratings-challenged morning show, OReilly told substitute hostess Elizabeth Vargas, Its a crime what happening on the Internet. You have websites misidentifying this young woman in the Kobe Bryant vase. You have criminals selling hard drugs. You have scammers working out of their basements in Terra Haute, knowing that they can promise to sell anything and then not deliver, and no one will do anything about it. We need the Federal Cyber Police, We need the FCP, and were going to get it!
Even though OReilly can be considered among the most Conservative of the prime time broadcasters, his call for another federal agency to enforce violations of state laws is not surprising.
OReilly, like all broadcasters is threatened by the Internet and what is portends.
There was a time when all television, and therefore (supposedly) all knowledge, all truth and all light, emanated from within 2 miles of either Times Square or Graumans Chinese Theater. The coaxial cable that was the physical necessity of the television networks was a one-way wonder. Chet and David, Laurel and Hardy, Luci and Desi were input in New York or Hollywood and they came out in 100 million homes across America. The attitude, and technological limitations were; nothing was needed from North Dakota, North Carolina or Terra Haute.
Satellite feeds changed that. Now, by relaying a TV picture through a satellite 25,000 miles in space, that signal could rain down on homes across America. Now, anyone with a truck-mounted satellite uplink could be the originators of a television network . and they did. Gadget merchandisers in Clearwater, Florida began to sell via satellite, and the Home Shopping Industry was born. Every affinity group from auto racing aficionados to zebra preservationists seemed to pop-up with their own satellite fed network. And of course, something called CNN became rather profitable.
The Godheads, New York and Hollywood, were worried. But after a few anxious lunches at Le Crique or Spago, Valium usage returned to normal among the entertainment elite. After all, the monster could still be controlled. They would just have to purchase a few of these upstarts, then run the new acquisitions by dispatching some junior executives to a few years of programming purgatory in Peoria. Control would remain firmly in the hands of the Chosen Few.
But they the earth trembled, the mighty towers of power shook and the bankers worried, because something new was born. Like the Biblical kings who feared the birth of the baby Jesus, the entertainment giants were terrified by something new called the Internet.
This Internet could not be controlled. It did not need supposed all knowing, all seeing News Anchors with more hairspray than understanding of the issues. It only needed truth. Certainly there were problems, but after a time, the problems and problem creators seemed to go away.
For example, the misidentification of the supposed victim in the Kobe Bryant case. These complaints are coming after we recently saw wholesale firings because reporters at major newspapers were simply making up stories. If television news is wringing hands about reporters getting it wrong, then why is 60% of the early information at any breaking news story wrong, why were 80% of the news predictions about the war in Iraq wrong, why is Idi Amin still alive (or is he) and why are they so anxious to get someone from the scene of an accident on the air that Howard Sterns assistants get on with bogus reports all the time!
If Mr. OReilly is so worried about scams on the Internet, why does TV allow infomercials for bogus hair regrowth products and cure-any-disease vitamin to permeate the airwaves.
If television is worried about pornography on the Internet, why do we now see gay dating, topless teenagers and some longhaired freaks penis exposed on every episode of Elim-i-date. Here in Orlando, Elim-i-date runs at 6:00 PM. Penis shots are just perfect at the dinner hour, no?
Finally, the Internet does police itself. Recently, a seller of forged autographs, one Thomas Paytes of Orange, Virginia, was exposed on e-bay. More than 100 people called his parole officer to complain, and Mr. Paytes is going away again. I wonder when that will happen to the purveyors of Miracle Hair Formula.
Mr. OReilly would do well to look at the horrible moral and mental misalignment between most Americans and the television bosses before he attacks the Internet.
How about a Television Truth Squad first? I would be willing to volunteer as the Platoon Leader of the Bryant Gumble Detachment. Surely, that would be a full time job.
What?
Perhaps, but he's also mad that his poll on the White-only prom didn't come out as he had hoped. He said it was a white supremacy group that had comandeered it, which was a lie.
Ahh, but no doubt he wants tight controls of what overseas sites we can access. You know, kind of like China.
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